The Schreber Case1

In the first phase of psycho-analysis Freud presented detailed case records to illustrate his theories. Of these records, five stand out by reason of their minute attention to detail, and they have become integral parts of psycho-analytical literature. Every psycho-analyst, therefore, has a scientific as well as a historical interest in the life stories of those five patients. Freud himself must have been aware of this when he added a postscript to the case history of 'Little Hans'. Nothing new appears to have come to light about 'Dora'. Ruth M. Brunswick reported on the later life of the 'Wolf-man'. The early death of the 'Rat man' made it impossible to follow up his development. Thanks to a variety of fortunate circumstances, I am now in a position to give further information about the life of Schreber.

Schreber occupies a unique position among the above-mentioned patients in that he was not treated by Freud and was not even personally known to him. Also, Schreber owes his fame not only to Freud's interest and scientific work, but equally to his own accomplishments. The brilliant presentation of his psychosis, the admirable objectivity of the description, and the artistic grandeur of the delusions make Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken ('Memoirs of My Nervous Illness') a classic. After fifty years it has neither lost its power of attraction nor has it been eclipsed by any other autobiography of a mentally ill person.

In the County Hospital at Arnsdorf, near Dresden, where I was Chief Physician from 1946 to 1949, piles of old case sheets from the former asylum at Sonnenstein near Pirna were stored, tattered as a result of wars. Among them were reports and copies of some of Schreber's case sheets. Some of the original notes had been lost; of those, certified copies or extracts were available. I hoped to find among this material further information concerning the third chapter of Schreber's auto-biography, which, as is well known, was entirely omitted f